When Breath Becomes Air: Why I Still Reread
The Unfinished Book That Finished Me
Paul Kalanithi was a neurosurgeon who was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer at 36 and spent his remaining months writing about what makes life meaningful. He did not finish the book. His wife Lucy added an epilogue. The book ends without ending and that fact is not a flaw. It is the most honest thing the book could do. I have read it three times and each time I reach the last pages I am as unprepared for them as I was the first time. I do not think that will change.
228Pages
3Times Read
"What makes life meaningful enough to go on living?
"Paul Kalanithi
Reading When Breath Becomes Air
Impact
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Section
Thinking about which of the questions Kalanithi raises about meaning I have actually tried to answer since I first read this, and which I have continued to defer.
This is not a sad book to avoid. It is a sad book to read. There is a difference, and the difference matters for knowing when to pick it up.